Over the course of an evening, around a fire near a barricade in the Anishinabeg territory, an Inuit comrade recalls the thinking of one of his Cree friends – Westerners have forgotten that they also come from the forest and that is why they turned it into an object of commerce. But the forest can be taught and it can be learned. However, this sensibility has been buried under centuries of colonial progress, of modern development. Any community that claims to dominate the territories, rather than serve as their guardian and heir, are doomed to a collapse.
As a sign of the times, a prophecy at Barrière Lake predicts ka-dish-pog-washni, ‘In the future we will jump high’. The Anishinabeg know of a time to come when storms will thunder, tornadoes will rage, floods will multiply, and the wind will shake the world to its foundations. When that time arrives, people from everywhere will recognize the elders and find the keys to the future in ancestral knowledge.
